Ankle Biters

Good morning!  As I mentioned in my last entry, I have a little ankle pain and it has taken me out for a few days.  I have been cranky, bitchy, grumpy and just unpleasant, my poor husband!  It has been really aggravating to be out of my routine.  I usually don't like to take more than 1 day off in a row of running, and I had taken 3 days by Thursday.   I couldn't help but feel my progress would start to dwindle and worried it would set me back.  I had stumbled across a podcast at work called Marathon Training Academy and it's been awesome to listen too!  So full of advice for training!  And they even touched on my concern with losing progress and my mind was put as ease when they said it takes 2 weeks without running to start to lose progress.  And injury happens to every runner at some point.  All I can do is listen to my body and stay strong.
Yesterday I was chomping at the bit to get out for a run.  My ankle wasn't really bothering me so I thought if I kept it slow and short and just did a little test run, I would be ok.  I rushed home, thinking about how good it was gonna be to run the whole time, I didn't care that it was cold and rainy.  I asked Maverick if he wanted to 'go for a run'? and he bounced off the ground, which got me even more pumped up!  I dashed upstairs to change into my running gear and we headed out.  I kept my pace about 9:45 and was only going 3 miles.  I felt my ankle a little bit, but mainly because I was looking for it.  Other than that I felt great!  As we started our way home and up the incline part of our run, I held my head high and felt tall, the run was going great.

We came to the RV dealership and I saw a couple of the owners dogs out for their morning potty break.  No people in sight and no leashes on the dogs, I knew once they saw us, there would be conflict (we have delt with these dogs before)  I coached Maverick to keep going, and we were cruising along until the other dogs noticed us coming.  They charged after us yapping the whole way...

Of course this caught Maverick's attention and he turned and pulled towards the tiny ankle biters to see what the fuss was all about.  As soon as he confronted the 2 chihuahuas they scrambled under an RV, but continued to yap.  I once again encouraged Mav to 'keep going'!  and we were on our way once again.

So besides that small distraction, the run went well overall.  My ankle wasn't feeling any worse at the end and I think I will be fine for a long run on Saturday.  Most of the running group is doing the Eugene Marathon so it will be a very small group of us.  Still looking forward to getting back into my routine and hoping not to hurt myself anymore because I might go crazy if I have to take even more time off!

What's the longest time you've had to take off of running due to injury?  How did you cope?